A study of housing developments has found that developers are routinely dropping the ecological features that they had promised in order to secure planning permission.
And they get away with it because planning authorities never follow up and check.
A study led by the University of Sheffield鈥檚 School of Planning and commissioned by the wildlife charity Wild Justice, examined 42 developments granted planning permission after 2012. The research spanned nearly 6,000 homes and more than 291 hectares of land across five local planning authorities.
The team searched for 4,654 trees and 868 bird and bat boxes. They surveyed many hectares of what were promised to be wildflower grasslands, ponds, and hedgerows. They found that only 53% of the ecological features that had been a condition of planning permission were present. When they excluded newly planted trees, this fell to just 34%.
Key findings include:
- 39% of trees identified in planting plans were either missing or dead
- 48% of native hedges that should have been planted were missing
- 75% of bird and bat boxes were not installed
- 83% of hedgehog highways were absent
- None of the promised invertebrate boxes were installed.
The study highlights a lack of monitoring and enforcement due to under-resourced enforcement teams, unable or lacking the skills to monitor the ecology of new developments.
A has been published by the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) to expose the failings. RTPI鈥檚 own research has shown that 80% of planning enforcement officers believe there are insufficient staff to manage the workload, and 41% of local authorities lack the ecological expertise necessary to implement biodiversity net gain policy (BNG) effectively.
The RTPI says that the new BNG policy is at risk of being undermined without stronger guidance, monitoring and investment. It has called on the government to require developers to report on BNG implementation and maintenance and establish national monitoring to track BNG progress and effectiveness.
RTPI chief executive Victoria Hills said: 鈥淲e are currently in the midst of a global nature emergency. Urgent action is needed to ensure the planning system protects biodiversity, with proper resources for post-consent enforcement.鈥�
Malcolm Tait, principal investigator and professor of planning at the University of Sheffield, said: "Our research shows that housebuilders are not delivering the ecological enhancements that are required as part of planning consents. What we have revealed is a huge, systemic issue and an urgent need for the planning enforcement system to be given the resources it needs to protect wildlife from harm.鈥�
Kiera Chapman, co-investigator and postdoctoral researcher in attention, flourishing and the Humanities at Oxford University, said: "This research shows the importance of paying attention to real world outcomes. So much work in the current planning system is focused on the production of virtual documents, plans and spreadsheets that we've taken our eyes off the concrete results on the ground.
鈥淒evelopers are taking advantage and the consequences for people and ecology are devastating. With new ecological policies in the offing, we urgently need to refocus our attention, and fund the parts of the planning system that can rectify this situation. The way we plan and build needs to be more responsible 鈥� we have to take the climate and biodiversity crises seriously"
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